I’ve always been intrigued by the bynames of monarchs throughout time. There’s the Merry Monarch, Bloody Mary, Charles the Fat (or Le Gros in French), Charles the Bald, the Virgin Queen, and countless, countless others. One of my favorites has always been Mad King Ludwig, or Louis II of Bavaria, who died 125 years ago today, drowning himself in Starnberger See. From the opening of his article in Britannica, you get a sense that he must have done some “great” things: “eccentric king of Bavaria from 1864 to 1886 and an admirer and patron of the composer Richard Wagner.” When we at Britannica brand you eccentric, rest assured, you’re eccentric.

That eccentricity led to his increasing seclusion from the rest of the world, as he withdraw into a mania for extravagant building projects. The most fantastic was Neuschwantstein, “a fairy-tale castle precariously situated on a crag and decorated with scenes from Wagner’s romantic operas.”

Neuschwanstein (see official site) served later as the model for Disney’s castle for Sleeping Beauty, and it has attracted millions of visitors since it opened to the public in the weeks after Ludwig’s death.

As Britannica notes,

The project’s principal architect was Eduard Riedel (until 1874); Georg von Dollmann (1874–86) supervised the work but designed only decorative details. Begun in 1869 and left unfinished at Louis’s death in 1886, this lavish stronghold is an eccentric romantic reconstruction of a medieval castle, complete with walled courtyard, indoor garden, spires, towers, and an artificial cave. Its two-story throne room is modeled after a Byzantine basilica; stars decorate its blue vaulted ceiling, which is supported by red porphyry columns.

Even before the castle was completed, of course, Louis had died, and by the early 1880s he had withdrawn from society almost completely. Indeed, on June 10 he was declared insane by a panel of doctors and removed to Schloss Berg by psychiatrist Bernhard von Gudden. The king took his own life three days later, and Gudden also drowned trying to save his life.